


Pink Lemonade

by facadecake



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Angst, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Friends to Enemies, Gen, High School, Lovers To Enemies, M/M, Minecraft, No Smut, Other, Slow Burn, dreamnotfound, lovers to enemies to friends to lovers, mcyt - Freeform, minecraft youtubers - Freeform, sfw, they go from lovers to enemies to friends to lovers again
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28356234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/facadecake/pseuds/facadecake
Summary: Clay "Dream" Wastaken works at a school as an English teacher. School starts up one year (as it usually does) but something is different. Someone new is starting their job here, and it just happens that the two have a history.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 25
Kudos: 112





	1. don't fall into my arms

**Author's Note:**

> I hope I actually finish this fic. Inspired by a Hamilton fanfic I read in 2016.

__

_Clik. Clak. Clik. Clak._

One day.

_Clik. Clak._

One day until the new school year started. One day until teenagers came bustling through the halls of Peter-Oliver Gullivan High School, with their backpacks bursting with too many binders or maybe sulking from too little binders. One day until the waxed linoleum floors are littered with fully loaded mechanical pencils forgotten by students in no evident shortage of stationary related tools. One day until the eye sore inducing LED lights flicker on at 4 AM to welcome the early rising teachers into their own personal underpaid hell. One day, Clay Wastaken thinks. He clicks his pen twice more and reclines in his office chair, soaking in his personal repose while he can. 

_Clik clak._

His desk is covered in papers he still needs to sign to initiate his Honors English 11 class into the new year. They’re all due at 5 PM, and it’s only 2:35 PM now. _No rush,_ he thinks, despite the very clear rush. A stray lock of dirty blonde hair tickles his eye and Clay pushes it back into his (rather unkempt) hair. He rubs at his face with the calloused fingers of his left hand (his right is holding the pen, which he clicks once more- _clik_ ). His eyes are stressed- his face is stressed. Actually, everything about Clay is stressed. The bags under his jaded green eyes are clear to show this, and he attempts to rub at them as though the gentle hue of blue would fade and make him look 8 years younger. (It doesn’t work.) He feels oily even though he took a shower just that morning. His green polo shirt feels too textured on his skin even though it was one of his softer shirts. Clay doesn’t do anything about any of these issues though; he just sits and concerns himself with it and other muddled paranoias. 

A bird flies past the window, which draws Clay’s attention. It’s summer in Downstate New York right now, and flourishes of green hug the windows from outside. The outdoors ache to be indoors, and Clay yawns, finding himself feel the indoors aching to be outdoors. 

_Just finish these papers and you can leave_ , he thinks to himself. His eyes flick back to the partially completed papers on his desk. 

_Klak._

_You should run outside anyway and ignore the papers,_ Clay’s thoughts serenade him. _You still have a few hours and it would take half an hour to complete these. Go outside, breathe the air. Escape the confines of this crummy establishment. Fight the patriarchy and go grab at the grass and feel a tree and feel the sky pressing down on you and laugh and cry and everything in between._

“No,” he mumbles and shuts his eyes, rubbing them the fourth time the past ten minutes. His face is tense.

_Oh, come on. You’re not getting anything done anyway. Just go outside and take a break at least. ...work on your story._

Clay cracks open an eye and peeks through his fingers to see a blur of green outside. It looks welcoming and damp, like the vegetable section of a Publix after they mist the products. He looks back to the papers, uncomfortably bright due to the harsh white light above his head. He groans.

“Fuck,” he mutters. 

Then, he stands up and walks outside. 

-

Clay doesn’t exactly escape work. He stays on campus. He’s found an only partially dilapidated bench to sit on braving the edge of the campus baseball field. Clay keeps working on something. Work, work, work. The only difference is that he is enjoying what he is working on. Pulled up on his iPhone is his Google Docs app, the mobile version. His personal Gmail is connected here, and with this comes access to almost every story Clay has written. Every story he likes, every story he doesn’t, and everything in between. For now, one specific document is opened up- his latest work. Typed in 10 pt. Times new Roman, a snippet of the first chapter is scribed with a pleasant blinking line at the very end. 

_Chapter one_

_Patrick Reef’s heart was racing faster than it ever had before. A drop of sweat trickled down his face as he tried to cap the pen that was furiously shaking in his hand. He had just finished writing a letter to no one in particular. It wasn’t going to be mailed, it was staying right where he had placed it. Square in the center of his glass coffee table. It was not a long letter, but in this case, it had everything the recipient would need to know. Two simple words filled the page. They were not written in code, yet almost anyone could read them and be none the wiser of their true meaning. He capped the pen, shoving it in his shirt pocket where it would stay. Turning around to walk out his door, he muttered those two all important words under his breath. |_

Clay fiddles his thumbnails on the janky rubber of his phone case. The words he is looking for aren’t coming to him. He looks around, smelling the air, breathing in and out to feel something. Usually, the words just come to him. He doesn’t know why it’s difficult at this moment.

His dream job was to be an author, but his mother insisted he should use his smarts for something good, like teaching. This was her nice way of saying, “Clay, sweetheart, authors hardly pay the bills, and I don’t want you living like that”. Clay usually remembers this argument with her with a scoff of laughter, followed up with the thought addressed to her, “that worked out, didn’t it?” 

Already 27 and practically hating his teaching job, Clay laughs at his mother’s advice. _If I became an author, I’d’ve kept my writing drive enough to profit,_ Clay argues in the shower to the invisible not-really-there audience that lives in the walls of his grimy bathroom. He does this once or twice a month, proving his mother wrong over an argument years upon years ago. _Maybe I would be broke, but I would have been passionate and happy. Now I’m just slightly broke and nothing else. Probably depressed._

Clay blinks. 

The sky is the same linen blue, cotton white clouded scape of winds he’d sat down to previously. The trees and woods and grasses whistle and tell each other sunny tales of things they felt fifty years ago. Voluptuous swarms of starlings soar through the sky in the distance. His eyes slip shut as a breeze tickles his skin. Crickets sing, and so do some cicadas, but it’s midday so they’ve no real reason to so they’re judged by every force of nature. This doesn’t stop them, however. Clay smells.

The smell of fresh air envelops his senses, and a faint smell of nearby honeysuckles teases him. 

Clay almost melts into his seat. But his grip on the bench keeps him grounded. The grain end of the bench is rough on his thumb, and lord does he rely on that fact to keep him tethered. His phone almost falls out of his hand. Luckily, as he feels it slipping, he’s brought back, and tightens his grip on it before it’s too late. His eyes are open now trained on his phone’s black screen, his posture rigid, his jaw tense. He sighs and turns his phone back on. He’s met with the dreadful blinking line again, and he’s almost put down, but he concentrates. 

And suddenly, he’s typing. His short term literary ailments waived to convalescence. 

_Nothing was more terrifying to him. The shortest, yet most complex cipher of all time._

Clay types up another line, hits backspace a bunch, types up another line, erases it all, and almost gives up, but gives one more try, and feels content with himself. 

_His death wish, but at the same time, his birth certificate_. 

Clay wonders if he should end it here. He wonders if it’s appropriate to have a chapter this short. He thinks so hard, he doesn’t hear someone come up behind him. Said person taps his shoulder, and Clay jumps out of his seat. 

“AH!” He spins around urgently. He’s met with the dear, dear old principal of this great school- Jonathan.

Jonathan Schlatt. 

“Oh, hello sir,” Clay desperately tries to recover, “I was just trying to-“ 

“My boy,” Mr. Schlatt says with a wide smile and crinkled eyes. “My boy…” he repeats, and lets out a laugh. Clay laughs nervously. 

“What are you doing out here?” Clay asks, gingerly sitting back down. Mr. Schlatt takes a place next to him. Schlatt wore a black suit that tightened and wrinkled against his old man's shape as he sat. 

“Oh, I could ask you the same thing, couldn’t I..?” And before Clay answers his rhetorical question, he bursts out into a series of guffaws, interspersed with horrible, horrible coughs. 

“Are you alright, sir-“ 

“I’m alright, son,” his response is guttural, “how are you doing? Tell me about your d-“ more coughs occupy him. Clay waits a moment before realizing the coughs won’t be over promptly, so he answers his question. 

“Well, it’s been alright. I mean- I still have some forms to fill out and submit for my classes before 5, so I have time. But I keep getting distracted, you know how it is.” Clay looks to his hands and fiddles to avoid getting distracted from his thoughts. Schlatt chuckles dearly. 

“Oh, I do know how it is. It’s some girl, isn’t it?”

“I-“ Clay looks up from his hands. “No. Not even- no.” 

“It’s alright, son,” Schlatt assures him despite Clay's clear aversion to his attitude. “I remember my first woman. She was gorgeous- long blonde hair, a wonderful figure, and the most gorgeous smile I’ve seen.” He chuckles and moves his hand into his face. “And now she’s my _wife. God,_ where did I go wrong?” 

Clay tries to understand, but he can only blink. Ignoring the way Schlatt uses such opprobrium in talking about his wife, he brings up his original concerns.

“Is there a reason you came out here, sir?” 

Schlatt looks pensive for a moment, caught in the onslaught of unresolved marital issues, before recalling. 

“Oh! You have a new room neighbor starting this year.” 

Now Clay really blinks. 

“A new room neighbor?” He asks, a little flabbergasted. Schlatt nods. 

“Yes, in the empty storage room next to you. He is going to teach a coding class.”

“A coding class?”

“Yes!” Then Schlatt leans in uncomfortably close to Clay’s ear and holds a shaky hand up to cusp the space in front of his mouth to amplify the noise into his ear. “We did some budget cuts at the end of last year,” he confesses devilishly, “and we had enough to buy a load of old laptops from North Saint Paul.” He leans back away. Clay is still caught up on the idea of a new teacher near him. His room was at the end of his wing, and one empty room separated his class from all the others. It was lonely. He always decorated both rooms’ doors for the holiday door contests, but he supposes now he won’t get to do that anymore. 

“Well, what’s his name?” Clay takes the bait. Schlatt smiles kindly. None the wiser. 

“Davidson.” Clay thinks of a motorcycle. “George Davidson.” The smile drops from his face. 

Clay now thinks of the worst year of his life. 


	2. don't ask me to repeat it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> flashback.

Two young men sit in the seating area of a local cafe. 

The cafe, innocently named “The Crybaby Cafe,” was where the two sat with each other. The cafe served notoriously good avocado toast. Toast wasn’t what was on the men’s tab, but rather, two scalding mugs of chai tea latte. One man —the shorter of the pair, darker hair — cradles his plain white mug like it's his last grip on the world. 

It may very well be. 

The other (taller significantly, with a more dirty blonde excuse of hair color) hardly recognizes his drink as being there, instead opting to concern himself with the fact the other man has yet to say a single word to him. His phone buzzes and he doesn’t look. Instead, his jade colored eyes peer longingly out the window at the morning sky, and he picks out the ocean through the distant buildings and such. Every now and then he tunes back into reality and glances at the person sitting across from him. He feels nervous about smiling at him. 

It is 11:08 AM in Harbor Island (Tampa, Florida- just where they are). They had met together at 10:53 AM. It has been 15 minutes now, and they still have not shared a word. A butter knife could cut the tension between the two. 

The taller man forces himself to take a sip of the drink. It’s as scalding as when it was served, and he tightens his jaw behind his lips. It’s also grounding. He had a rude awakening that morning, the other man ringing him excessively telling him to meet him at said cafe. He considered going back to sleep, but the tone of his caller held a solemn urgency made him feel something in his stomach, a lurch of uneasiness. 

So, he got up. 

He pulled on a dumb navy blue state crewneck he found in the lost and found that he claimed as his own. Then he brushed his teeth, slid his black Nikes on, and headed out to the student transit shuttle stop. He texted the other man with every landmark, keeping him as updated as possible in case he was late. He only got a response to about two of five messages. It’s a brisk walk from the transit line’s end to the cafe, and with the day being early Thursday in early April, he makes through with a paucity of foot traffic to avoid. 

He sees his target person sitting at a booth alone and he walks over and promptly sits with him. His nerves aren’t quite quelled. So, he distracts himself in the scenery of the cafe. Most of the interior decoration consisted of tacky painted plates line the walls, antique ceramic babies are perched on top of various pieces of furniture or displays. It is a sad toss at lucricy but it gave personality. The two always got a kick out of the place from the many times they went together. If you looked out one window, you could see the edge of the main building for Hillsborough Community College. Ironically enough, this is the same place the two schooled together. They found this place and fell in love with it, going often to have laughs and good breakfast and such. But neither of them were laughing today. 

The shorter individual sighs. His attention is fully put into the mug. Then, a parting of the lips, and-

“Wait,” the taller student interrupts before the other can even get words out. “I feel like I know what you’re gonna say,” and he certainly does lighten up at this, “and I want to say I support you, George. I love you, but if you need to do what you need to do, then… you do, I dunno.” George, the one that wasn’t tall, sighed again, this time with a hefty sense of relief. 

“You don’t know how much of a relief it is to hear you say that,” George responds in an authentic British accent. He leans his head in his palm and rubs his forehead ever so lightly. “I just think it would be better for both of us if we didn’t see each other anymore… thank you, Clay.”

The warmth of his nice blue crewneck doesn’t stop the goosebumps that makes themselves prevalent on Clay’s arms. George sits across from him, happy he understood, but…

“Break...up?” Clay asks numbly. George looks up in a partial daze, which switches to a look of feigned amusement, but then tragically, a look of pity. He grimaces and very slowly moves to hold his arm while looking away.

“Oh…. Clay, I..” George tries to find words, but they hide from him like minnows. 

“Did-... you wanted to break up?” Their eyes meet again. “Why?”

It’s such a simple word. It’s such a simple question. George wishes he had a simple answer. He dodges the question instead.

“What did you think I was talking about..?”

“I-I thought you were gonna suggest we make it long distance so you can go home to your hometown for that apprenticeship you were telling me about, I… why?” Clay’s voice gets the slightest bit choked up. “Why would you want to break up? Did I do something?”

  
“I just don’t think... “ George rushes to explain, but his train of thought cuts off, so he catches the next one he can with a sputtering breath, “I-I don’t think I can commit, Clay.” 

Clay looks at George. 

“Why?” He asks again. George drops his hand to the table and rattles the utensils on the table a little bit. 

“Stop asking why, I don’t know, okay? I don’t know, I just…” and George sighs again. A quiet moment passes where he moves his hand back to his forehead in veiled contempt of this conversation. “...I’m sorry. I’m…” he tries to think of another thing, but fails. “I’m sorry.”

Clay looks around the cafe at other people. Other couples. Other groups of happy people, conversing and smiling in repose. Then he looks back at George, rigid in his seat and avoiding eye contact entirely. 

Clay lets out a sigh.

“Okay,” he says. 

“I’m sorry,” George says again. Clay doesn't react. George practically downs his drink and says he has a study group to meet up with in ten minutes across campus. Clay says it’s okay, and George pays the tab before leaving. Clay wonders if that is meant to be some sort of reparation.

They end up leaving 10 minutes apart from each other, George having a ride from a friend. Clay waits for the next shuttle to come by. He doesn’t mind revelling in the scenery of the small cafe. He looks at one particular plate above the doorway that he and George joked about buying just because of how _stupid_ it looked. It was a poorly done recolor of Garfield to make him look like an infant, but it just looked like some freaky flesh Garfield. George found it hysterical. Clay loved when he found things funny- his smile was incandescent. Clay smiles himself, thinking about the perfect anomaly George was to him. But his smile falters, and he remembers where he was, what happened, what he was to him. He takes a swig of his now cold chai tea latte to hide the frown on his face. 

Clay would miss George. 

  
  


And so, one young man sits in the seating area of a local cafe. He knows he will cry when he gets back to his dorm. He doesn’t cry a lot, but there are times that are exceptions. Clay finishes his drink and to avoid loitering, he leaves. George texts him, saying he’s rescinding his Netflix account. He also says he is leaving their shared Minecraft server. Clay responds appropriately (though forlornly) to his messages. Then he chooses to gaze out the shuttle bus window and think about how he just got dumped by his boyfriend of 1 year (and four months). 

This is the last time Clay Wastaken and George Notfound talk for a long, long time.

  
  


...A long time being about 5 years. 


	3. don't suffocate my heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I SAT ON THIS CHAPTER SO LONG BYE.... SORRY

Coffee is one of Technoblade’s favorite things. It’s bitter, hot, and it smells great. He loves his coffee black. He finds it sobering, and sobriety is one of Technoblade’s treasured attributes as a Political Sciences teacher. 

Techno takes a long sip from his mug of this morning’s fresh pot. The mug he is drinking out of has a faded decal of Dora the Explorer plastered on the side, and the inside is stained with years upon years worth of black coffee sitting in it. It’s only second period so the coffee still burns his tongue- just the way he likes it. He smacks his lips, sets his mug down, and adjusts the delicate prescription glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. They have, oddly enough, two deep pink lenses fitted in the titanium frame. 

Techno's appearance is pretty average. He has this air of intimidation around him that has all these features sort of work together perfectly to show. In reality, he just has a horrible fashion sense and the lack of self awareness for that. This involves incidents like today, where he tries to pull off a pink tie on a yellow button down.

“Alright, listen. I’ve got some good news for you. I’ve got no rubric for you.” Some kids look up at this, fascinated. “I do have this short slide show, though-” those students who were previously interested now lose any sense of fascination they had- “I know, but it’s short. I promise.” His presentation flashes on the screen. The first slide says “Mr. Blade’s Class Rules”, with a smaller text beneath it reading “made by Mr. Blade”. A kid or two chuckle. He flicks to the next slide. Only a few pay attention, the others send snaps under their desk or doodle on the rubrics from other classes. One looks like he’s sleeping. 

“Rule one: don’t cheat. I don’t give you guys a ton of work so just be honest with what you turn in. Rule two: don’t make fun of my cool glasses. I know you’re just jealous if you do.” He watches as more of his students smile at the jokes. He keeps a straight face, though. “Rule three: whoever brings me the best drawing they can do based off a line from this book,” and Techno raises a book from his desk right into the light of the projector- it’s titled “Art of War” by Sun Tzu- “gets 100 extra points. I check at the end of the semester. This isn’t really a rule, but I thought you guys’d be interested in that.”

He has the doodlers’ attention, now. Now, quickly, he flashes to a screen with an abundance of information about the course listed in rows on the slide. 

“Here’s some borin’ stuff that you don’t have to worry about, I’ll just-” he switches the slide- “-there. And this is why I don’t have a rubric,” Techno concludes his first lesson in front of the small class of tired sixteen and seventeen year olds. His slideshow flashes to the last slide of his 4 slide presentation, with only a few black words harshly shone on the white screen. He says them aloud, “‘cause _I trust you can behave_.” He doesn’t actually, but it beats making a sheet of rules that they’re sure to forget in the first week.

“Any questions?” Techno asks, looking from the board to his kids. 

Some teenagers look around blankly, and one particularly tall one with a blonde mop of hair raises his hand into the air. Techno notices it.

“Yep?” 

“Um, sorry, Mister Blade,” Techno’s eyes droop slightly as he realizes he has another British student, “Could I use the restroom?”

He sighs for a very, very long time. A few seconds pass after he does this, with the classroom uncomfortably quiet in contrast to the bustle of the first day of school. He picks up the clipboard on his desk and looks at the seat chart, finds the kids name, and looks up to the kid. 

“Alright, _Tommy_ ,” he groans, “but don’t forget the hall pass. It’s next to the Kleenex and lost n’ found bin.” 

As he thanks him and to the door, Techno looks out over the class. _Small bunch this year_ , he thinks, counting maybe 12 strong. 

“Oh-” the kid says before he gets out of the classroom, and Techno looks over to see a teacher coming into the classroom, almost bumping into the kid on the way out. This teacher was none other than Mister Wastaken. He rushes to Techno’s desk and Techno expects the worst, like him asking for advice. They had a strange relationship. They could be best friends at times and other times they would despise each other. Clay found Techno to be the perfect person to come to for advice and such, and while Techno was quite averse to that sort of relationship with a person, he got amusement out of Clay's quarrels. It was a win-win in a strange way.

“Hello, Mr. Wastaken,” He starts calmly.

“Hi Techno. Uh, listen. I need to talk to you.” Clay looks over at the students briefly, then back. “Can we go out in the hall for a moment?” He asks in a shallower voice. 

Techno sets his clipboard down, “yep, sure.”

Clay is already on his way back out the door and Techno says a final few words to his students.

“Anyway,” he projects his voice so that they pay attention, “just don’t be stupid, or I’ll ground you.” A pause of silence passes as he sips his coffee. “And by that I mean I will put you into the ground,” he explains. He has a build sort of on the heavier side of things, much of the weight being muscle, and he’s older than most of the other teachers by a substantial amount- or so he says. This added to his most recent statement does a fair job to intimidate his students- he is answered by silence and blank stares. Techno convinces himself that these are blank stares of horror, and that the kids are silent because they are so afraid. He is content with this explanation.

“Study hall for the rest of the period. We start chapter one tomorrow. Relax, it’s a new year, you’ve done this tons of times before.”

Then he follows Clay out the door and shuts it.

\--

“So what’s the problem?” Techno asks, sort of dreading the response he’ll get. The two are standing right outside Techno’s room. Clay looks at the watch wrapped around his own right hand and the disgustingly bright LED’s in the ceiling reflect in the glass. He looks up to Techno with a concerned expression. 

“The new guy, um, Mr. Notfound.” 

“Oh, so that’s his name.” 

“Yes. So. This is a weird thing to ask, but… I need to know when he comes in today. Or-or if he's a block class, what day he comes in. Or both, if you know both.”

Techno takes a long sip of his coffee and holds his other hand's index finger up. Clay waits, but can’t help but to berate him. 

“Is that black coffee?” 

Techno finishes his sip and savors the taste. He hums a little fondly, then sighs as though there were something pleasant about that horrible, horrible taste. 

“Yup.”

“Agh, you disgust me.”

Techno chuckles at this. 

“Good. Now, about Mr. Notfound, why are you so worried? You’re actin’ like he’s gonna kill you or somethin’. And if it satiates you, I have no damn clue about anything you just asked.” 

Clay checks his watch again with a cursory glance. 

“I don’t want to get too into it, but we used to… have a really great relationship, and we haven't talked in a while.”

“Mm.” Techno sips his drink again. “So he _is_ trying to kill you.” 

Clay laughs. 

“No.”

“Good friends then, right?” Techno offers. A quiet moment follows before Clay looks away crestfallen and Techno takes the queue.

“I’ve lost those before,” Techno says. His voice is softer, a little more honest. “One bad argument is all it takes,” he continues, “before they’re packin’ their bags and heading out on a friendship _you_ thought was great-“ 

“Nonononono, Techno.” Clay interrupts. “I mean, it’s a little like that, but…” Clay gently picks at his cuticles. “He’s my ex-b...“ and suddenly, Clay decides he doesn’t like the words coming out of his mouth, so he rephrases in a quick little spurt of words, “we used to date, back in college.” 

Techno’s reaction is surprisingly subdued. 

“Ahhh,” he drawls. Instinctively, he goes in for another sip of coffee, but he finds nothing left. “I need more coffee,” he mumbles to himself and it's louder than he thinks because Clay looks at his strange Dora mug. Techno looks to Clay, a quizzical look contorting his face. “So what are ya askin’ me help for now? I don’t know anything about romance, you know this.”

“I don’t know that, I hardly know you Techno,” Clay almost laughs. He probably knows Techno better than anyone else in the building does, to be honest, but that is still an impressively little amount. Then Clay's almost-laugh morphs quite sadly into a miserable sigh, and he leans his shoulder against the lockers that lined the hall wall. The lanyard with his keys on it jingle subtly in his pocket with his shift of position. An end of it falls out and hangs out of his pocket lazily. It is bright green, annoyingly visible against his khaki, and just plain out of place, but Clay doesn't move it yet. “I think I just want… reassurance, or something.”

In a more subdued voice, Techno responds, “I’m the worst person to come to for that, Clay.”

And even more subdued from Clay, “I know.” 

A beat passes as he hears a teacher in a classroom way down the hall yell about something. 

“What’s goin’ on, buddy. What really happened?” He asks this quietly, genuinely. Clay's eyes are a little clouded. 

“I,” he pauses. Then he inhales deeply. “This is hard to say.”

“That’s okay,” Techno says as he peeks at the clock to make sure they won’t be interrupted by the bell. 

“...George broke up with me, a while ago. We were so great together, honestly. I thought we would be together, like... longer, too, but he had to ruin it for us. He was such a dick, he didn't even tell me what the hell I did wrong. He said it was his commitment issues, but that feels like total bull. He left after that, and...” His voice breaks for a moment- he's choking up. Clay clears his throat. The edge of the lanyard hanging out of his pocket finds its way into his hand and then both into his pocket, and he runs his thumb over the texture of it. It has a little bit of old super glue stuck to a certain part, and he concerns himself with picking at it. It grounds him a little. “...And he ghosted me." He concludes. "He never answered my texts. At all. I blocked him at some point just so I would stop trying to fulfill something that would never happen. You know, I'm still pissed. I kind of want to punch him when I see him.” His eyes are glued to the ground.

Now, Techno doesn’t know how to respond to this. He looks at Clay with concern and his poise feels a little rigid, a little awkward. He wishes he had a drink right now. Specifically, black coffee.

“Ah,” he says finally, and he opens his mouth to say something, but he promptly decides it’s inappropriate timing and shuts it. He grimaces and softly says, “yikes.” Then realizing that wasn’t comforting at all, pegs on an “I’m sorry buddy, that’s- that’s rough for ya. And, uh- for the kids' sake, try not to beat anyone up on campus, alright?”

Clay has his eyes cast down still, but he laughs- it sounds spiteful. He seems to laugh a lot to quell the anxious air. He doesn't answer.

“Are you sure it's the same guy?” Techno tries. "I mean, c'mon- there's gotta be a dozen George Notfound's just in this state."

"I thought that too, until Schlatt showed me a picture of him on LinkedIn, and I just..." He releases a shaky breath from his chest. "He- he still looks the same after all these years. It's crazy. I swear he doesn't age."

Techno scratches his neck and sort of folds his lips. There's nothing he feels he can really say, so he lets Clay continue talking.

“It’s cool, though. It was a while ago, you know? I’m just, you know… scared to see him again.”

“Mhm.”

"I don't actually want to punch him, by the way. Don't- don't report me for that."

They both laugh. This time, Techno doesn't answer him. 

"Hey. Clay?" Techno says though, and Clay expects some jab at being reported. He waits a moment. Then, Techno says: "You're gonna be fine."

He smiles. "Thanks." Clay feels fathered in a way. 

When silence washes over them again, Techno takes the opportunity to point out the time. Clay notices it too, and rushes back to his room, thanking him again. Techno’s left standing there alone with maybe a minute or two to spare before the period ends, so he walks to the teacher lounge and fills his mug up with more coffee. 

More excuses to leave class, more trips to the lounge. More trips to the lounge, more coffee. And boy, does he love coffee.


End file.
